by Roger Hudson
Death Comes by Amphora
By Roger Hudson
Copyright © Roger Hudson 2007 and 2014
Roger Hudson has asserted his rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or stored on an information retrieval system (other than for purposes of review) or transmitted in any form without the prior permission of the copyright holder.
Published by Roger Hudson
First published in Great Britain by Twenty First Century Publishers Ltd.
ISBN: 978-0-9931229-0-3
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, as in the case of historical characters, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Dedicated to Marion Thomas,
for our long friendship and
for all her support and encouragement
over the years
Table of Contents
MAPS
PRELUDE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
HISTORICAL NOTE
LIST OF CHARACTERS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MAP of Market Place (Agora) 461 BC
MAP of Athens 461 BC
Knowledge of the ancient city of Athens in 461 BC depends on later written accounts and archeological evidence, sometimes in conflict.
Much of the road pattern is speculative, but we know that the River Eridanos ran through the city, channelled and coverd in places. The great drain ran into the Eridanos, and there was also a piped water supply, not shown in the maps.
The architecture represents a cultural turning point: re-building had recently restarted, which led to many of the famous structures that we are familiar with today.
These maps are an assessment of how things may have been in the time of Death Comes by Amphora.
PRELUDE
Klereides was annoyed. Dragged from a warm bed, away from a playsome wife. Shaken up and chilled by the jolting ride fast through the empty streets of Athens. Downhill on rutted roads to the shipyard in Peiraieos, in the one-horse chariot they had sent for him. He must remember to have that driver sacked!
He shivered as he pulled his cloak tighter round him and rubbed his arms, huddling closer to the watchman's fire, all dignity gone. The flames gleamed on his bald head. Beyond them, the watchman's mangy, one-eared dog growled at him.
"What brings you here this early then, owner Klereides? I don't often have company in the night." The watchman doubtless recognised Klereides’ wine-red face and rotund figure from his attendance at launching ceremonies, but he showed scant respect. These democratic reforms! Undermining all the old values. Still, could work in the company’s favour if one played it right, Klereides mused.
"That old sun should start rising soon now, but the men won't be here till he's fully up. Can't see to work right, they can't, till he's up." Klereides felt like shouting at the man to be quiet but he was trying to muster his thoughts. "Gets lonely at times, but I'm used to it now. Used to be, I'd hear the creaking of the timbers, as they cooled in the night air, and think the Furies were after me." The fool chuckled, as though it was a big joke. "Doesn't trouble me now, though."
Klereides tried to ignore the scrawny, pock-marked little man with his uneducated accent and turned to warm the back half of his body and limbs at the watchman's fire, but the idiot gabbled on.
"What do you think about these democracy reforms then, citizen-owner?" He didn't wait for an answer, as though hoping his employer wouldn’t notice his wary use of the word 'citizen'. "Me, I'm not sure. I always thought that General Kimon did his best for Athens and us ordinary people. They do say he's going to be mighty annoyed. But that Ephialtes, now, he does make it sound as though we could all be better off."
Klereides had to get away from this constant chatter. He had more urgent things to worry about. He needed quiet to think what could be wrong for anyone to summon him at this time of night. The shipbuilding company he and his partner owned had a contract nearing completion, with one of the ships due to be inspected by government officials later in the day. Acceptance, and the next payment, depended on it. And the next big contract.
Klereides tried to summon some dignity and grunted at the watchman, "Meeting at the completed vessel, dawn." That's what the message had said, wasn't it? "Send the others along when they arrive," he ordered.
"Yes, citizen. Will you be all right down there on your own? Here, take this lantern, I'll light another. Only careful if you rest it down. Don't want those timbers catching fire, do we?"
Klereides was impatient. "I know all about safety risks, watchman. Give it here!" He grabbed the lantern, an oil lamp contained within a ram's horn to protect it from winds but allow light through the translucent sides.
The moon was still high with only the faintest hints of daylight appearing in the sky. Klereides was sure he could pick his way safely along the walkways of planks. Fortunately there was a ramp, so he didn't have to climb a ladder. His plump figure didn't take kindly to feats of agility, and, in the morning chill, his old war wound was playing up, making him limp.
Above him, he could sense the tall skeletal shapes of half-built vessels crowding in around him, like dead men's fingers clawing at the dark night sky.
It was such a relief to be away from the watchman's chatter, though he could still hear him talking away to his dog. Klereides felt suddenly very alone. It wasn't the silence. Crickets and cicadas were still chirruping, the birds had just started their dawn chorus, a cock crowed in a not-so-distant farm, a donkey brayed, making him jump. He leant against one of the scaffolding trees to collect his thoughts.
Things had seemed to be going satisfactorily. True, he had panicked not so long ago, with those threats, and sent for his nephew, thinking of adopting him and making sure of an heir. Better than it going to that awful cousin of his. No, he was sure he had smoothed things over, especially after the dinner party last night. If the boy did turn up, he'd just send him back again. Everything was fine. Plenty of time to make his own heir on that frisky young wife.
Only now something really serious must have happened for him to be summoned here at this time. Normally his partner made all the practical business and technical decisions and left him alone. 'To drink and gamble the profits', Klereides joked to himself, smiling. No, I do my bit, he thought. My role is to smooth the way to new business, chat up the politicians who have a say in awarding contracts, entertain foreign buyers. I deserve my slice.
His lamp showed the bulk of the troop carrier looming ahead. Officially, it was a merchant ship but the instructions had been to adapt it to carry a large number of infantry, with storage space for weapons, food and facilities for a long journey. Part of General Kimon's plan for a long-distance strike force, he imagined.
For a moment Klereides thought he heard someone moving on another higher walkway. Odd. He listened – nothing except the insects and birds.
As he moved on, something small fell and clattered down, a pebble maybe. Perhaps he had kicked it himself. The planks moved and creaked under hi
s feet. The timbers of ships and scaffolding made strange shapes, silhouetted black against the barely lightening sky, a multi-layered cage all round him, even above where the stars still looked down coldly.
Could the man be here already? He held up the horn lantern but its light was faint and only cast conflicting shadows.
He called out quietly, "Hello there!" No response. Slightly louder, "Is that you?"
Nothing. Then a slight laugh. Or was it creaking timbers? A cough. Definitely a cough. He headed in the direction of the sound. Thank the gods, they were here. Yes, there, he could see a lamp glowing faintly ahead. Must have taken a quicker route than mine, he thought.
"Coming," he called out confidently. "Why'd you have to drag me out this early, you old rogue?"
Surprisingly, when Klereides reached the lamp, it had been hooked to a scaffold upright. There was no-one there. He was alongside the nearly finished troopship now. Here the walkway, at deck level, widened out to a platform allowing direct access to the vessel. Beside him and above on more scaffolding and platforms were items waiting for outfitting work to commence once the basic structure had been passed by the inspectors. Hatch covers, cleats for tying back ropes, the ropes themselves for all the rigging, the giant amphorae for water storage, the bins and containers for the ship's store of food, and more.
"Where are you?" This was unnerving. There was no sound except the birds and insects and that Hades-rousing donkey. Then, suddenly, the sound of someone clearing their throat. Above him. He looked up. There was a dark shape, beside that big amphora slung on ropes up there.
Klereides stepped back to see more clearly. That laugh again, satisfied. A strange swishing sound and the black shape of the amphora above him seemed to grow suddenly bigger. The gods, it's falling! Must move! But his tired limbs didn't respond quickly enough. He felt a monstrous pain, heard timbers crack beneath him, and then nothing.
The horn lantern he had been carrying broke with the impact, the oil spreading out across the planks, the flame growing with it. In the light from the flames, a dark shape bent over the crushed body. But, at the sound of the approaching watchman, it grabbed the light still slung from the upright, blew it out, and was gone.
"Citizen? Citizen, are you all right?" called the voice of the watchman, alerted by the noise of the crash. The braying of a second donkey joined the first, and the watchman's dog barked and barked, as the firstlight of the sun god Helios spread through the scaffolding and tried to warm the silent heap of flesh and earthenware that once was man and amphora.
CHAPTER 1
Dawn was the faintest glimmer on the horizon behind the Pride of Attika as the heavy-laden merchant vessel lumbered along the coast. On the deck, young Lysanias slept soundly, after the recurring nightmare that haunted him since his father’s disappearance. Snuggled under a sheep's fur, his precious tool bag beside him, and, surrounded by other passengers, he looked peaceful now.
It was only the familiar sound of carpenters' mallets and hammers ringing across the waters that roused him, with a rush of excitement, to full attention. Eager for his first sight of Athens' great harbour, he sprang up and ran to the rail.
"Master, where is your modesty? Put this around you, while I fetch your tunic" He grabbed the fur held out by his slave, Sindron, and covered himself. Silly old fool! But he was grateful.
In the cool, clear air that Attika was noted for, everything was sharply outlined, though still distant. There were the stone lions his father had told him about, guarding the mouth of the Great Harbour, whose size more than justified its name. Beyond it, the town of Peiraieos stretched fingers of red-brown roofs, wooden constructions and fire-blackened ruins into the green of farmland and market gardens above, reaching up the hill as though trying to touch the similar fingers of what looked as though they must be hovels, wooden shacks, as well as houses and what might be industrial premises pushing down from the city walls of Athens itself.
Two grey lines like legs stretching down from the city showed where the Long Walls were being built that would protect this area against enemy attack and ensure access to the port, the wall on the left almost complete, the wall on the right little more than foundations it seemed. The city itself was big, bigger than he'd imagined even from his parents' stories, with the sharp-edged, square-topped shape of the High City, the Akropolis, rising above the city walls, and the green and grey of the mountains beyond that.
Only the jagged, fire-blackened pillars of ruined temples broke the hard outline of the High City crag. Lysanias knew the Athenians had vowed not to rebuild them in order to demonstrate the sacrilege committed by the Persians when the invaders had destroyed the temples and burned the city to the ground, but it puzzled Lysanias how the Athenians could do honour to the gods without temples. And he was surprised how little of the housing had been rebuilt and how much of the business of the harbour seemed to be done from temporary-looking wooden structures, even though Sindron had explained that every bit of available stone had been commandeered to rebuild the city walls that were the essential defence against the Spartans.
"It's so far away, Sindron, and we can hear it already. There must be hundreds of carpenters at work," he said, with awe in his voice, to the elderly slave who had come up behind him.
They made an ill-matched couple. The smooth-skinned, well-muscled youth and the tall scrawny old man. Lysanias' wavy hair fell to his suntanned shoulders. His light brown eyes and wide, full-lipped mouth held their customary smile, though the eyes revealed a questioning wariness that told of an eagerness to explore, to find out for himself. He put on again the worker's tunic, his usual clothing that he had insisted on wearing for the voyage.
Sindron’s beard was long and drew to a point. Like his windblown hair, it was predominantly grey. Below the sharp bone of a nose, the full moustache hung unevenly, hiding the thin-lipped mouth with its humorous twist. The absence of frown lines and the neat homespun cloak he wore suggested that, despite his slavery, this man had not fared too badly in an often-cruel world.
Sindron was horrified that so little had been rebuilt and was wondering what it would be like within the city walls, but he didn’t say so. He was painfully aware of the impact of the sea air on his old leg injury that heralded a return of the limp that could slow him down so and lessen his value as a slave.
"That'll be the shipyards, master. Athens rebuilding its war fleet, I expect." Lysanias knew that! Would Sindron never forget he had once been his schoolteacher?
The slave handed Lysanias a piece of bread with a salted herring. Lysanias took one bite and, too excited to eat, tossed the rest to the seabirds noisily circling the ship.
Lysanias knew how timbers could ring as you hammered the nails and wooden spiles home. He had himself worked alongside his father, Leokhares, only on fishing boats and houses, as Leokhares, taught him the tricks of the carpenter’s trade, but shipbuilding couldn't be much different. He longed to be out there in the early morning sun, with the familiar tools in his hand.
Old Sindron seemed to read his thoughts. "That's all behind you now, young master. Your uncle won't want you involved in a manual trade. You're moving into the upper classes now, boy." The word slipped out and Sindron regretted it the moment he saw the frown crease Lysanias’ brow. But the boy needed his advice. He had promised the lad’s mother.
Lysanias blushed despite himself. “I can still make things for the household. Anyway, it’s none of your business, old man! You do what I say now, not my father or mother!"
Sindron stiffened. It was the same boyish attack but beneath it was the real power the boy now held as his new owner. He decided to try reason, logic. After all, he had always taught the boy to think logically. "Correct, master. But remember that I have more life experience than you and I did live in Athens. I tutored your uncle and your father, before your father emigrated and took me with him." It sounded stiffer, more pompous than he'd intended, and, as a slave, he wasn’t at all sure that his experience was that great.
> Engrossed and angry, the pair paid little attention to the bustle of rousing passengers around them.
It irritated Sindron that the Athenians cosseted their young men so. Even at eighteen, the boy was so naïve and impulsive. Thank the gods, Lysanias would go straight into two years’ military training. That should knock some sense into him. Then whatever business training his uncle might give him before he would have to carry any real responsibility would hopefully mature him further.
Lysanias knew this conflict was going too far. He'd hurt the old man. It was boyish and he was a man now. Eighteen yesterday, even if he hadn’t enjoyed celebrating his coming of age away from the family, on board a tossing ship, seasick and lonely.
"I didn't mean it that way, Sindron. You know I value your advice, but you have to admit a lot has happened since then. General Kimon has hammered the Persians in battle after battle till they're not a threat any more. Athens is the top power in the whole Aegean and beyond. It has to be different now."
Sindron saw the humour of Lysanias firing back at him points he had himself enumerated often enough. He relaxed a little.
"It'll all be exciting and new, " Lysanias went on. "You won't recognise it." He ventured a smile to cool the temperature, while consoling himself with the thought that he could sell the old slave in Athens, if the man continued to get on his nerves. He wasn’t sure he would dare. His mother would be very annoyed, if he did. But he could! He hoped the old man realised that.
The disagreement could not disturb the wonder and satisfaction he felt at coming to the renowned city of his birth.
"We'll see, master. The Athenians can be very conservative."
"And snobs, godsawful snobs." A gaudily dressed, dark-skinned, heavily bearded man, leaning on the rail alongside Lysanias, butted in, his dress and his guttural accent declaring him a foreigner, probably a merchant.